I want to develop some variants that have pieces with unusual effects on other pieces. Here are a couple of experimental attempts with pieces from ultima / roccoco and other variants:
I. Rapacious
Monkey is coordinator + long leaper. Upside down knights are warp points from Warp Point Chess. Shield is Mamra from Mamra Chess. Upside down queen is Cleopatra from Cleopatra Chess. Ox-ram is Pushmepullyu, advancer + withdrawer. Spider is an immobilizer that can capture by replacement its immobilized prey after two turns spent immobilizing. Any piece can be captured. If a warp point is captured, it must act through the king.
II. Oxram Chess Rams are advancers. Oxen withdrawers. Oxram a pushmepullyu.
In both cases, especially the first, the Chameleon serves a very important defensive purpose because without the chameleons some of the stronger pieces would be too strong.
Experimental variants. Any ideas welcome. Please playtest with me.
Rapacious 2 With additional piece (on h1 + h9) being Mesmer from Mesmer Chess
Sagacious I'm calling Rapacious 3 "Sagacious" because with the addition of the Guardian Angel (c3 + g7) and Genius (e3 + e7) from The Toddler, it surely promises to be a less aggressive and more intellectual game.
Dan Troyka wanted to know whether the Cleopatra could change the Mamra's colors. I'm leaning towards yes because otherwise there is really no piece that can retard the Mamra's progress other than the pawn of course and pawns can easily be taken by other pieces. So without the Cleopatra being able to change the Mamra's color, the Mamra will likely cut the lifespan of these games in half.
Also, I want to propose adding yet another power to the Monkey: In addition to Long Leaper and Coordinator, Swapper. And as Swapper, it could set Mamra off its powerful course.
Pugnacious Introducing the fearsome Ghast from Nemoroth should make for a more fighting game again.
Cretaceous adds a Crabsnail to Pugnacious. The Crabsnail is from Betza's Demi-Rifle Army. A very unusual piece with directionality (moves differently backwards and forwards), it carries a short-range dead zone around with it.
Bodacious uses the 12 x 16 format Greg Strong uses for Cataclysm and Joe Joyce uses for Chesimals and Chieftain Chess. Speaking of Strong's Cataclysm, this variant adds a Grand Queen (m1 + d12), similar to the Grand Rook from Cataclysm, can capture as either queen or leo (cannon + vao), next to the Dev from Karakus's Giant Chess, which in a sense guards the weakening Wuss piece right behind it (The Dev needs to be attacked on all four sides before it can be taken down, so the Wuss is well and truly protected). In the center of the board are adjacent Promoters, from Lavieri's Chess with Promoters. The yellow and light blue kings are Anti-Kings from Aronson's Anti-King Chess. The very powerful ZigZag General from Atlantean Barroom Shatranj has been added as well for color. The frosted colored rooks are a combination of the ghost piece from Tandem-84 and the Wizard of Sibahi's Chess with Wizards, "the Magician moves and captures like a Ferz or a Dabbabah or a Mirror Wazir." Instead of moving like a bishop on the mirror board, this Ghost also moves like a rook from its own square and like a bishop from its place on the mirror square. And it has the ability to trade places with any friendly piece. Pawns can make up to four space initial steps.
I decided that on this board, crabsnail, loveable though it is, is not really powerful enough to contribute much. So I substituted archer, as used in Fugue.
I've changed Bodacious again, updated it to add two more types of kings. On o1 and b12, we have Contramatic Kings (they try to get checkmated). Contramatic Kings double up as warp points (To fit an extra king on the board, I did away with one of the warp points.) i1 and h12 are Prisoners from Aronson's Prisoner's Escape. Their goal is to get check free.